Learning Curve
by Daria234
Summary: Chuck/Bryce in college. They're roommates and Bryce is already secretly working as a spy. Romance, sex, college antics, ancient Greek poetry, and some angst. Slash, some very mild kink.   Don't read if you don't like.


Title: Learning Curve  
For: Yuletide  
Recipient: metaphoracle  
Fandom: Chuck  
Request/pairing: Chuck/Bryce in college  
Rating: R  
Spoilers: Spoilers for the first two seasons of Chuck.  
Note: Mentions sex, though fairly non-explicit. Mentions of canon character death, so angst.  
Thanks to: Ashcat for her cheerleading and help!

Fic:  
In all their years in college, Bryce and Chuck only took one class together.

Junior year. Accelerated Ancient Greek. Chuck remembers it well.

"What's an International Finance major going to do with a dead language?" Chuck had asked him when they were planning their schedules.

"What's a Computer Science major going to do?" Bryce shot back cheerfully.

"Um, translate the parts of Lord of the Rings where Tolkien uses Greek words as Quenya? Also, computer languages become dead languages in about ten years, so it's good practice for a career of narrowly avoiding obsolescence."

Bryce laughed as Chuck continued, "Seriously, Bryce I'm on the take-the-accelerated-course-to-finish-the-language-requirement-in-one-semester plan. And you're on the I'm-already-proficient-in-ten-languages plan."

"Okay, maybe I think it'll help us learn modern Greek. Maybe after we graduate we can go to the islands. And maybe - well, maybe I just thought it would be fun to take a class together."

"You think taking an ancient language with a quadruple workload sounds fun? Oh wait, of course you do," Chuck said, rolling his eyes. Bryce really was ridiculously good at learning foreign languages.

"Come on, we're both so busy these days," Bryce said with a casual shrug. It would have seemed casual, at least, to anyone but Chuck.

Chuck saw right through it.

It was Bryce who had been suddenly busy for the past few months. He had a new job that was taking all his time and, truthfully, made Bryce too spent or stressed to enjoy quite as many games of laser tag or as many late night conversations about whether a Marvel superhero would date a DC superhero. To say nothing of the strain the new job put on their personal life.

"You're sure you want to take a class with me?" Chuck asked, touched but not wanting to be another source of stress.

"Positive. It'll be romantic, like when we learned Klingon together," Bryce said, grinning.

"You mean when you pretended to learn Klingon slowly so I could keep up?" Chuck asked with a smile. Chuck was a fast learner, and going at a circuitboard he could outpace Bryce any day, but at languages, even though he was pretty fast, he couldn't pick them up nearly as quickly as Bryce could.

Bryce shrugged unapologetically at the teasing accusation about Klingon, though, and Chuck knew that that was as close as Bryce ever got to an admission of anything.

"All right," Chuck said, "Let's learn a dead language together. But I'll need your help with all those verb tenses. You'll have to find a creative way to motivate me to study," Chuck said, raising an eyebrow.

Bryce took the hint. He gave Chuck a light push onto the bed and pressed a thigh between Chuck's long legs. He said in a very good impression of nonchalance, "I'll try to think of a reward system that will keep us both excited about the class." But then he leaned down to kiss Chuck, soft but assertive, and Chuck responded, arched up so that their torsos met and Chuck could feel the beginnings of Bryce's arousal. And then Bryce's fingers pushed into the space underneath the waist of Chuck's jeans, a knuckle rubbing lightly across the skin of Chuck's hip. Hesitant, for some reason.

It had been almost a month since they had last been together, Chuck recalled.

"Hey, Bryce," Chuck said, propping himself up, "You know you don't have to take a class with me if - I mean, I know your new job is a lot, but you don't have to. We'll make time for each other whatever our schedules are, you know?"

Bryce smiled, small and genuine. For a split second, Chuck could see his relief; he could see that Bryce had actually been scared that he was letting Chuck drift away.

"I know," Bryce answered, "But I really want to take a class with you Chuck. It's a good way to squeeze in more dorm room time. And nothing else fits my schedule. Is that - is that okay with you?"

An odd question from the man who had been with him since freshman year. But Chuck was better than he used to be at knowing how to translate Bryce's questions, and he knew that this was the closest Bryce would ever come to saying I need more of you.

"More than okay," Chuck said softly, then moved his hand to cup Bryce's jaw. Bryce kissed him one more time, then slowly inched down Chuck's jeans.

Chuck lay back for a moment to look at Bryce, who still looked at Chuck's body with the same wonder as he did two years back, when this first started. He thought about all the things Bryce had said, and, as usual, all the things Bryce hadn't.

It was always like this with Bryce, Chuck knew. You always had to do a little extra to know what he was really telling you.

But then Bryce's tongue pushed those thoughts right out of him, and Chuck moaned, setting his hands on Bryce's head to run his fingers through the dark, soft hair. And then for Chuck, there was nothing except but Bryce's hands and Bryce's mouth, and of course Bryce's eyes, dark wide pupils surrounded by blue, looking right at Chuck as he worked.

===============================================

Even from the onset, Chuck didn't like Bryce's job. Not that Chuck knew much about it.

It was at some international bank that had such tight security rules that Bryce wasn't even allowed to tell Chuck what he did. Whatever it was, it meant that Bryce was always having to suddenly leave on some trip, often coming back looking like hell and not being able to explain why. Chuck had actually encouraged him to quit, but Bryce just said, "I'm good at it. I'm going to work here after I graduate. And I feel like I'm actually doing something."

"At a bank?"

Bryce smiled blankly. "Yeah. Weird, I know. But I'm making a difference."

"Then why the nightmares?" Chuck asked, knowing that he might be stepping a bit too far inside Bryce's forcefield of inner turmoil (as Chuck had nicknamed Bryce's metaphorical walls).

"It's just... sometimes you have to do stuff you wish you didn't have to do." Bryce looked lost, then, and young, and Chuck could tell he wanted the questions to stop. And the thing about Bryce was, if he didn't want you to have information, then there was no way you were getting it out of him.

Chuck, of course, wanted to scream that if his job made him full of guilt and regret and fear - which it obviously did - then no bank job could ever be worth it. But Bryce was ... well, Bryce.

Bryce did what he thought was best and just assumed that everyone else would see his logic. And if not, too bad. It was useless trying to convince Bryce to be easier on himself, or to expect less of himself. It wasn't going to happen.

Sometimes, if Chuck really pressed, Bryce might say make an offhand comment about having to take over a company that didn't want to be taken over, or having to be nice to some jerk of a client who was horrible to his own employees, or some other excuse for being so torn up over such a boring-sounding job. And Chuck had no reason to doubt it. It didn't feel like the whole story, but it fit with what Chuck knew about him; Bryce would try to do the right thing, but when it came down to it, Bryce would do what needed to be done. It was one of the things that Chuck admired about Bryce, even as some small, petty part of him wished it were different.

But he made sure to wait up for Bryce's return, even if it was really late, so they could talk over Ramen noodles or play videogames or watch a TNG episode on VHS. Anything to fill Bryce's mind with images other than whatever he saw at work that would leave him sleepless and agitated. Bryce always told him not to worry, that he didn't need Chuck to baby-sit, but Chuck always found some transparent excuse.

It was easier to explain why he was waiting up when they had a class together. Chuck could always just claim he needed Bryce to help him study.

Though eventually "study" just became their euphemism for sex.

==========================================================

They really did have to study for the class. The professor was about to retire and he viewed the class as his last chance to correct the younger generation's ignorance of the classics. It was grammar drills, memorization of literary passages, thirty pages of readings in the original dialect per class meeting, and an extra five hundred pages per week of supplementary literary readings in English translation -because the professor had recently met someone who didn't know who Xenophon was, and he wasn't about to let that happen to any of his students.

It was brutal. Even Bryce had to study hard.

The first time they actually argued about course material was when Bryce was helping Chuck memorize a passage in Homer. It was the part where Achilles finds out that his best friend has been killed. Achilles was angry about an insult and refused to fight alongside the Greeks, so Patroklos, often thought of as Achilles' lover, had asked to wear Achilles' armor into battle to strike fear into Trojan hearts.

Achilles couldn't say no to the man he loved.

It did not end well.

The excerpt that Chuck was memorizing, though, was as poetically elegant as it was stark and raw; the rhythm moved relentlessly forward, telling of Achilles reaction, his disbelief, his lashing out, trying to tear his hair out and rend his clothes. That was how a warrior showed anguish, back then, strange as it seemed.

The hexameter made it easier to memorize, surprisingly, but the passage was long and Chuck had to practice it for a while.

And then right in the middle of helping him practice, Bryce made some comment about how the whole point of the Iliad was to show that if you're capable of fighting a powerful enemy, then you have an ethical obligation to do it.

Chuck looked at him like he was crazy. Because obviously the point was to show that nobody, no matter how brilliant or beautiful or fast of foot, is invincible. There's a reason people still talk about Achilles' heel, Chuck pointed out. And Chuck wasn't sure why, but he felt really annoyed that Bryce didn't see that.

But Bryce just smiled like he did when he didn't want an argument and told Chuck to repeat the twelfth line.

When Chuck finally felt like he had practiced the lines enough, he leaned back on their sofa and sighed. "Man, talking about a guy losing the love of his life is exhausting."

Bryce leaned back too, their shoulders and arms resting easily against each other. "I know. He must have felt so guilty."

"Irrational guilt, sure. But he still would have felt it," Chuck acknowledged.

"Irrational?" Bryce said, "Seriously? It was all Achilles fault."

"What? Patroklos insisted on going into battle. What was Achilles supposed to do?"

"Not let his best friend fight his battles, that's for damn sure."

"Are you serious? What would you have done? I mean, fine, you wouldn't have sat out in the first place. But assuming you weren't going into battle and your friend begged you to support him when he took on the Trojans?"

"When he took on someone he couldn't beat? Why would I support that?"

"Patroklos wouldn't have been that much safer in his own armor. And he might still have fought Hector. Come on, what could Achilles have really done differently at this point?"

"He could have knocked Patroklos out and dragged him back to the ship and sailed back to Thessaly. He could have pretended to take Patroklos hostage and gotten the other Greeks to give up their war-prizes. He could have snuck into Troy and assassinated Hector in the middle of the night. He could have - what?"

Chuck was looking at him like he had knives growing out of his fingertips. "Uh... where are these ideas coming from?"

Bryce shrugged. "I watched a cheesy action film last week. It stuck with me, I guess." That blank stare again.

Chuck ignored it and continued, "But Patroklos was a warrior too. A really good one. And Achilles can't just take that away from him. It was right to give him the armor, it's just that destiny made it so it didn't work out."

"He didn't even protect his friend," Bryce said, stubborn.

"His friend asked him for something. You can't just say no to that. You can't just say 'Sorry, buddy, I don't have faith in you.'"

"You can if it's to protect the person you care about."

"What the hell, Bryce? The ends justify the means?"

"Of course the ends justify the means. What else would justify the means?" Bryce answered, and he didn't look like he was more than half-kidding.

Chuck rolled his eyes. "Dude. Patroklos wanted to stand up and fight for his side. If Achilles said no, it would be like he didn't respect Patroklos at all. It would be like Achilles thought he was so much better that he didn't even have to care about what Patroklos wanted. That's not friendship."

Bryce hesitated. "I hadn't thought about it like that."

"Don't you think he would have been a really shitty friend if he didn't give Patroklos his armor?"

"But Patroklos would be alive."

"And would feel like his own best friend thought nothing of him. And he'd have to face a dangerous world thinking that his best friend and - I'm assuming - red-hot-lover had totally betrayed him."

Bryce paused again, and said, finally, "Maybe..."

It wasn't avoidance, Chuck could tell. Bryce was looking downward, mulling it over, not all that close to making a decision. He was always quick to act when he felt it was needed, but in private, he was fairly contemplative, taking a long time to think over a dilemma, going back and forth too many times to count.

It was one of Bryce's best and worst qualities, Chuck thought.

"Hey, man, whatever, it's like pirates vs. ninjas, right?" Chuck said, hoping to turn the mood a little lighter now that the silence was sitting a little heavy.

"What?"

"What should have Achilles done - it's like whether you think pirates or ninjas would win in a fight. There's no one answer, it's just personal preference, right?"

Bryce furrowed an eyebrow. "But why would anyone debate that? It's so obvious."

"I know, it's totally pirates," Chuck grinned.

"You're kidding, right?" Bryce asked, bouncing forward and grinning. "Why would anyone think ninjas would lose to pirates?"

The argument that followed lasted much, much longer than the one about Achilles. But its details were never quite as sharp in Chuck's memory.

But Chuck certainly remembered that it was a good night.

=============================================================

A couple of weeks later, it was Bryce's turn to present a memorized passage to the class. He only had a night to learn it, since he was on another last minute business trip until the night before, but it was Bryce and it was language, so neither of them were too worried.

As Chuck checked Bryce's recited Greek lines to make sure they matched the book, he suddenly asked, "Why did you choose this passage?"

"What?" Bryce asked. "Why did you choose yours?"

"Because Professor Burke said to choose a scene that stirred our emotions. It doesn't get much more emotional than losing the one you love. But you picked a scene that's mostly comic relief."

Bryce frowned. He had chosen one of the passages taking place when Odysseus returns - after 20 years - but finds so many enemies waiting that he has to enter his own home in disguise. There was some touching moments, sure, but mostly a bunch of mistaken identity clichés. Well, they might not have been clichés when Homer used them. But probably.

"I guess... I guess I just think it must really suck for Odysseus."

"To be in danger after all this time thinking he would be safe once he got home," Chuck said.

"Sort of. It's like, he's home, but he can't even reveal himself. And even at the end, he kills his enemies, and it's necessary, but it's also ... brutal. And maybe he wouldn't have been capable of doing that, before he went to war. You know?"

Chuck nodded. Bryce was in one of those rare moods where if Chuck really paid attention, he might actually get a miniscule glimpse of what was going on in Bryce's head. Chuck wasn't about to interrupt.

Bryce continued, "And even though he wins, the whole story is about how it's hard to go home. Like, there's the person you are at Troy - the killer - and the person you are at home - the family man. And it - it just doesn't fit. It's like he's two different people. So of course he's really good at pretending to be someone else. He's doing that all the time anyway."

Bryce looked away then, and his jaw tightened just a tiny bit, and Chuck wanted to ask something, anything, to figure out what the hell was going on with him. But that little movement of jaw was enough for Chuck to read; the forcefield was back up, and pushing into it was just going to make them both miserable.

So he said, "You know, Bryce, I think I know why you relate to Odysseus so much."

"Why?" Bryce asked, eyes suddenly large.

"You're both total bastards sometimes."

Bryce snorted.

"That's not a denial," Chuck pointed out with a grin. "Plus, you're both good at thinking of sneaky strategies. Like when you snuck us into that concert by pretending we were groundskeepers."

"Hey, you're no slouch either, you're the one who figured out how to get past the university firewall and add the Chronicles of Amber to every single course's list of required textbooks."

"Yeah, but you're the one who tells security you need to check your "cell lines," AND picks a bunch of locks, AND climbs a wall to lower the ladder so we can watch the sun rise from the roof of the biochem building. Which is totally Odysseus-y. With a side of MacGyver. And maybe a little dash of Spiderman. Just because I'm feeling generous."

"Okay, first of all," Bryce said, giving Chuck the first undistracted smile since he returned home from his trip, "When you play Doom until 6:00 in the morning, you're supposed to go eat Hostess cupcakes and make out with your boyfriend on a roof. It's a totally logical progression."

Chuck cracked up before he thought of more reasons why all their pranks, stunts, and ridiculous ideas were completely, 100% Bryce's fault. Eventually, Bryce had to settle the debate by silencing Chuck's mockery with a kiss. He fell asleep in Chuck's arms and slept through the whole night, which almost never happened after a business trip.

The next morning, Bryce recited his lines in class. Chuck wasn't surprised at all that his delivery was flawless.

====================================================

Years later, however, what Chuck remembers best about the class was studying for the midterm.

Well, maybe not best. But with the greatest sensory detail.

He woke the Saturday morning before the midterm to the feeling of something cold and sticky being poured on his stomach.

Honey.

Bryce was pouring honey on him while he slept.

He would probably find that very odd if he weren't so turned on.

"Don't you have to travel?" Chuck asked.

"Nope. Trip got cancelled. I get to study with you all weekend."

Chuck moved to sit up and kiss him, but Bryce lightly pressed him back down on the bed and straddled his legs so he couldn't get up. "Nope. Not until you answer the question."

Chuck groaned. Bryce, despite his threats, really hadn't withheld affection to get Chuck to study. Not before, anyway.

"Is that a plastic bear? I don't think they had plastic bears in ancient Greece," Chuck mumbled.

"I nicknamed him Ursa. Eros daut' etinaxen emoi phrenas, anemos kat' oros drusin empeson."

"What?"

"Eros daut' etinaxen emoi phrenas, anemos kat' oros drusin empeson," Bryce repeated, teasing a finger along the line of honey right below the navel and then licking it off his finger as he smiled, tauntingly, at Chuck.

"How could anyone translate anything with you there doing... that?" Chuck complained. Begged, really.

"Come on, Chuck. All those poets would always whisper honey-sweet words to their lovers. So now I'm doing the same."

"Okay, that explains the honey. But I don't recall a large body of Greek poetry dedicated to cocktease."

"You must have skipped Chapter 46," Bryce grinned, then leaned forward to kiss him, his tongue moving in silken circles, breaching Chuck's lips with the linger of intensely sweet honey.

Chuck was speechless for a moment as Bryce looked down at his face, as he saw the flutter of Bryce's lashes and the crinkle around his eyes. "You know, back then, they didn't have sugar. Honey was the sweetest thing you'd ever taste."

"Hard to imagine," Chuck managed to articulate.

Bryce smiled and leaned back. He had the look of a man who knew that he could get whatever he wanted. "Back to work, Chuck. Eros daut' etinaxen emoi phrenas, anemos kat' oros drusin empeson."

"Um... love ..uh, something, something, uh, my mind, like a mountain wind fluttering the oaks," Chuck tried, hoping Bryce would give him an A for effort. Or maybe a lay for effort. Whatever.

Instead, Bryce slowly lowered his mouth so that it hovered over the honey on Chuck's body, looking right into Chuck's eyes the whole time, full of intent.

Then he stopped, smirked, and said, "You can do a better translation than that, Chuck."

Chuck groaned, covered his face, and tried to tell his brain to take some of the blood flow back from his crotch, at least long enough to either answer the question or talk Bryce into not studying.

After a moment of desperation, however, Chuck opened his eyes, looked up at him, and said, "Love made me tremble to the core, like a wind hurtling through mountain oaks."

Bryce smiled. "I'm impressed. Accurate and hot."

"Reward me."

"Not so fast. Who said that?"

"Um... Medea?"

Bryce's face gave him the no.

"Okay, of course not. Creepy to wake someone up by quoting Medea. Um... hint?"

Bryce hesitated but said, "This author also wrote, 'Come to me here, where blossoms flower their spring, and the breezes pour soft, and serve the nectar of pleasure in golden cups.'"

"Sappho," Chuck answered victoriously.

"I totally gave it away," Bryce said.

"Still counts."

Bryce smiled and leaned down to lick the honey off of Chuck's belly, tongue pressing a hard swipe into his soft flesh.

He stopped before his lips reached Chuck's dick.

Now that was tragedy.

"Bryce," Chuck pled.

"Not until you answer all the questions right."

Chuck called Bryce an cruel, insufferable, ruthless bastard several times that day before Bryce finally decided Chuck had studied enough. It was past midnight before Chuck got to feel Bryce's lips on him, and they spent most of the next day recovering. Chuck said his brain would never retain all that information plied into him under such duress.

On Monday, they took the midterm. Bryce got an A. Chuck got an A+. It was the only time all semester Chuck scored higher.

===================================================================

Years later, Chuck thinks back at his time with Bryce in college.

He's grateful they made the time to spend with each other. And, to his great surprise, he finds that he was glad he took that particular class.

He thinks of it sometimes, when he tries to piece together what really happened, the truths about Bryce's life that he hadn't been able to translate at the time.

He thinks of how nonchalant Bryce was the night he got Chuck kicked out. As if he didn't struggle with the decision at all.

Even after Chuck finds out that Bryce did it to protect him, Chuck still kind of hates him for it. For wanting to protect him so badly that he was willing to let Chuck believe that everything they had was a lie. To make Chuck dread the thought of caring about anyone or anything so badly again.

It was that part of Bryce that thought that Achilles should have thrown his best friend in a sack and carried him back to safety.

But then Chuck remembers how conflicted Bryce was when they argued over Patroklos. He remembers Bryce's furrow of concentration as he tried, because Chuck asked him, to see another side. And he remembers the fact that, in the end, Bryce decided that Chuck should have the Intersect.

Even though it was made for Bryce, he let Chuck wear it into battle.

Chuck also thinks sometimes of Achilles' guilt, and what Bryce must have felt when Chuck was in danger because of Bryce's actions. And then Chuck wonders if that guilt made him rush headlong where he wouldn't have otherwise. But then he realizes that it wasn't guilt that made Bryce a hero, and it disrespected Bryce to think it was.

Chuck thinks of Bryce often. Now that he's gone. He thinks about all the other texts they had to read, those ancient stories that, instead of fading away, just grew more and more tangled over time. The stories that came to mean more and more as they took deeper root in people's minds.

He thinks of Thucydides, brusquely informing the world that the course of history is determined by petty, violent men. Chuck had found Thucydides difficult, both grammatically and otherwise, but Bryce thought Thucydides was clear as day. Chuck thinks about what it must have been like for Bryce, seeing the worst of human nature, but not having anyone to tell his story to.

Chuck thinks sometimes of Aristophanes, who claimed that before there were individuals, everyone was physically attached to their soulmate, bouncing around as eight-limbed, two-headed beings. But after the human race became a bunch of lonely ones - after each person was separated from their other half, their complete self split down the middle with a sharp sword - people had to spend their lives looking for their missing piece. They clung tight if they were ever lucky enough to find them.

Chuck thinks of Antigone, who loved her brother too much to let his body be defiled. She knew her love would get her killed, but she defied anyone who would stop her. She embraced death and glory so valiantly - and so stubbornly - that Bryce had joked that she would make a good Klingon warrior.

Years after they read it, Bryce gets killed protecting him, and Chuck thinks once more about what it means to die for love.

Chuck also thinks of Odysseus now. All the time. He tries to imagine what Bryce thought while reading about his long, long journey.

He thinks of Bryce and Odysseus both, men living two different lives at once, the fighter and the man at home. Chuck pictures Bryce's face, downcast as he stares down at the Homeric text, trying to make sense of it all. The image of Bryce coming back to the dorm wearing a big empty smile hovers in Chuck's mind, years later, as he walks through the door with groceries and a grin for Ellie and Devon. As he easily convinces them that everything was fine, that he didn't just narrowly escape having his throat slit, that he didn't just spend an hour scrubbing his white shirt to get rid of the blood of the would-be assassin that Casey had shot right in front of him.

Chuck thinks of Bryce's other smile, too, the real one. Lips spreading slowly until the smile was full and wide and invincible. He thinks of Bryce's mouth, sweet like honey, seducing Chuck into saying things about love he didn't ever know he could say. And Chuck thinks of the years after he left college, the years he spent bitter, numb to the world, still trembling from the damage that his love did.

Love, strong as a mountain wind.

And he thinks of Achilles finding out that he will never see Patroklos again. Achilles finding out that he will never see the lines around best friend's eyes when he smiles. Never wake up to the warmth of Patroklos beside him. Never know the softness of his lips under the press of a fingertip... The startled flutter that washed across his face when desire filled him... The sound of him laughing, forgetting that there was a world and a war out there, his laugh circling them like a forcefield with room for two.

Chuck thinks of all this and he understands why Achilles threw himself on the ground. He understands why Achilles tried to tear his own hair out.


End file.
